Intel Unveils Full Desktop Coffee Lake Refresh Lineup

Six months after the original unveiling of the first Coffee Lake Refresh models, Intel finally released its full 9th-Gen lineup today. The bulked-up line of desktop chips comes with 26 new models that span the Core i9, i7, i5, i3, Pentium, and Celeron families, with ten low-power models sprinkled in for good measure.

Aside from the new Intel models that come as a byproduct of segmenting the chips into various core counts, clock frequencies, and memory support, there aren't many new features to speak of with the freshly-announced processors. The most surprising news comes in the form of Turbo Boost support for the Core i3 models, which does promise to bring even more performance to the value end of the market where AMD has steadily been chewing away market share with its more-capable Ryzen 3 models.

As Intel has already announced, the chips now feature support for up to 128GB of DRAM, a doubling necessitated by increasing RAM density, and support for Optane Memory with Pentium and Celeron processors.

Intel's full Coffee Lake Refresh roll-out has been slow, with the first K-Series chips arriving back in October 2018. A few more models have trickled out in the interim, but it's easy to assume that Intel's ongoing shortage of 14nm production capacity has played a role in the delayed arrival of the full complement of chips. There have been recent signs of the shortage easing, and Intel hopes to have the full lineup on shelves for purchase immediately.

9th-Gen Intel Core i9 Series

Core i9 Series

Base / Boost

Cores / Threads

TDP

PCIe Lanes

Unlocked

L3 Cache

Memory Support

Integrated Graphics

RCP

Core i9-9900K

3.6 / 5.0

8 / 16

95W

16

Yes

16MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$488

Core i9-9900KF

3.5 / 5.0

8 / 16

95W

16

Yes

16MB

DDR4-2666

No

$488

Core i9-9900

3.1 / 5.0

8 / 16

95W

16

No

16MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$439

Intel's Core i9-9900 slots in as the lone locked model of the Core i9 series. This model still comes with eight cores and sixteen threads like the other i9 models, but Intel pared back the base frequencies to 3.1 GHz while still maintaining a 5.0 GHz boost. This model also comes with integrated graphics and weighs in at $439, serving as the budget chip of Intel's flagship lineup.

The Core i9-9900 is $65 more expensive than the eight-core eight-thread Core i7-9700K, which is the next step down on the ladder. The -9900 might prove valuable to semi-professionals on a budget, the performance of Intel's eight cores and sixteen threads is hard to beat with a mainstream platform in threaded workloads, but the 5.0 GHz boost clock means this chip will still require many of the expensive accommodations you'll need for an i9 chip, like a beefy cooler and motherboard.

9th-Gen Intel Core i7 Series

Core i7 Series

Base / Boost

Cores / Threads

TDP

PCIe Lanes

Unlocked

L3 Cache

Memory Support

Integrated Graphics

RCP

Core i7-9700K

3.6 / 4.9

8 / 8

95W

16

Yes

12MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$374

Core i7-9700KF

3.6 / 4.9

8 / 8

95W

16

Yes

12MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$374

Core i7-9700

3.0 / 4.7

8 / 8

65W

16

No

12MB

DDR4-2666

No

$323

Core i7-9700F

3.0 / 4.7

8 / 8

65W

16

No

12MB

DDR4-2666

No

$323

Intel's Core i7 lineup comes with eight cores and no Hyper-Threading, with the Core i7-9700 models stepping down to a 65W thermal design power (TDP) compared to their other 95W Core i7 brethren. The reduced TDP rating comes as a byproduct of the reduced 3.0 GHz base and 4.7 GHz boost frequencies.

As per Intel's new strategy of selling F-series parts that come without graphics, the Core i7-9700F doesn't have a graphics engine. You'll notice that Intel doesn't provide a discount in exchange for the culled feature, so both chips come at a recommended customer pricing (RCP) of $323.

9th-Gen Intel Core i5 Series

Core i5 Series

Base / Boost

Cores / Threads

TDP

PCIe Lanes

Unlocked

L3 Cache

Memory Support

Integrated Graphics

RCP

Core i5-9600K

3.7 / 4.6

6 / 6

65W

16

Yes

9MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$262

Core i5-9600KF

3.7 / 4.6

6 / 6

65W

16

Yes

9MB

DDR4-2666

No

$262

Core i5-9600

3.1 / 4.6

6 / 6

65W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$213

Core i5-9500

3.0 / 4.4

6 / 6

65W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$192

Core i5-9500F

3.0 / 4.4

6 / 6

65W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

No

$192

Core i5-9400

2.9 / 4.1

6 / 6

65W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$182

Core i5-9400F

2.9 / 4.1

6 / 6

65W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

No

$182

The Core i5 lineup serves the vast majority of the enthusiast market with six cores and six threads. The Core i5-9600 and -9500(F) feature much lower base frequencies than their more expensive i5 counterparts, but boost frequencies remain relatively high at 4.6 and 4.4 GHz, respectively.

There's a $49 price gap between the $262 Core i5-9600K and the $213 Core i5-9600, the biggest gap of the i5 series, meaning the -9600 could be the chip to get for mainstream gamers and enthusiasts that aren't interested in overclocking.

9th-Gen Intel Core i3 Series

Core i3 Series

Base / Boost

Cores / Threads

TDP

PCIe Lanes

Unlocked

L3 Cache

Memory Support

Integrated Graphics

RCP

Core i3-9350K

4.0 / 4.6

4 / 4

91W

16

Yes

8MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$173

Core i3-9350KF

4.0 / 4.6

4 / 4

91W

16

Yes

8MB

DDR4-2400

No

$173

Core i3-9320

3.7 / 4.4

4 / 4

62W

16

No

8MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$154

Core i3-9300

3.7 / 4.3

4 / 4

62W

16

No

8MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$143

Core i3-9100

3.6 / 4.2

4 / 4

65W

16

No

6MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$122

Core i3-9100F

3.6 / 4.2

4 / 4

65W

16

No

6MB

DDR4-2400

No

$122

Intel's Core i3 series has undergone perhaps the most radical changes over the last few years, with Intel's addition of two more cores enabling an impressive boost to performance with the initial Coffee Lake chips. Intel adds in support for Turbo Boost with these refresh chips, which should boost performance further. That's a much-needed addition here on the low end of the stack, primarily because AMD's full Ryzen 3 lineup comes with unlocked multipliers and are widely available.

9th-Gen Intel Core Pentium and Celeron Series

Pentium and Celeron

Base / Boost

Cores / Threads

TDP

PCIe Lanes

Unlocked

L3 Cache

Memory Support

Integrated Graphics

RCP

Pentium Gold G5620

4.0 / -

2 / 4

54W

16

No

4MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$86

Pentium Gold G5600T

3.3 / -

2 / 4

35W

16

No

4MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$75

Pentium Gold G5420

3.8 / -

2 / 4

54 / 58W

16

No

4MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$64

Pentium Gold G5420T

3.2 / -

2 / 4

35W

16

No

4MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$64

Celeron G4950

3.3 / -

2 / 2

54W

16

No

2MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$52

Celeron G4930

3.2 / -

2 / 2

54W

16

No

2MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$42

Celeron G4930T

3.0 / -

2 / 2

35W

16

No

2MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$42

As we've recently covered, Intel's Pentium and Celeron lineup now support Optane Memory, which is helpful as Intel's Optane H10 Series SSDs come to address the value segment. These dual-core chips span from 54W down to 35W, with the three least-expensive models coming without Hyper-Threading. As with all of Intel's Pentium and Celeron chips, these models don't come with Turbo Boost and step back to DDR4-2400 memory support.

Core i3 and Pentium chips have suffered the most at the hands of Intel's 14nm shortage, largely because the company is prioritizing higher-margin models during the squeeze, so we might continue to see limited availability.

9th-Gen Intel Core T-Series

T-Series

Base / Boost

Cores / Threads

TDP

PCIe Lanes

Unlocked

L3 Cache

Memory Support

Integrated Graphics

RCP

Core i9-9900T

2.1 / 4.4

8 / 16

35W

16

No

16MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$439

Core i7-9700T

2.0 / 4.3

8 / 8

35W

16

No

12MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$323

Core i5-9600T

2.3 / 3.9

6 / 6

35W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$213

Core i5-9500T

2.2 / 3.7

6 / 6

35W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$192

Core i5-9400T

1.8 / 3.4

6 / 6

35W

16

No

9MB

DDR4-2666

Yes

$182

Core i3-9300T

3.2 / 3.8

4 / 4

35W

16

No

8MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$143

Core i3-9100T

3.1 / 3.7

4 / 4

35W

16

No

6MB

DDR4-2400

Yes

$122

Intel's T-Series models are designed for the space-constrained systems that need to sip the least amount of power possible to facilitate lesser thermal solutions. All of these models come with a 35W TDP and span from four cores up to eight. The flagship T-Series Core i9-9900T is the only model to come with Hyper-Threading active, meaning the chip wields 16 threads. Pricing also runs the gamut from $122 for the Core i3-9100T (which only supports DDR4-2400) to $439 for the Core i9-9900T.

Intel says the full lineup will be available today at major retailers, but we wouldn't be surprised to see sporadic shortages. We'll keep an eye on availability and update accordingly.

the last substantive change to the intel chip design was when they went from broadwell to skylake (and that was mostly to the memory subsystems, the overall design was so close as to almost qualify as a refresh). Every update since has been a "refresh" or a "refresh with more cores". zero progress on node shrink, or design update in almost 4 whole years now, this is like the Pentium 4 days when intel would release revision after revision of the same chip with slightly higher clock speeds or more cores.

Unlike with the p4 I don't see a new chip design like the core design coming down the pike to break them out of this nonsense.

salgado18

Quote:

reminder, this refresh is a refresh of a refresh of a refresh.
the last substantive change to the intel chip design was when they went from broadwell to skylake (and that was mostly to the memory subsystems, the overall design was so close as to almost qualify as a refresh). Every update since has been a "refresh" or a "refresh with more cores". zero progress on node shrink, or design update in almost 4 whole years now, this is like the Pentium 4 days when intel would release revision after revision of the same chip with slightly higher clock speeds or more cores.
Unlike with the p4 I don't see a new chip design like the core design coming down the pike to break them out of this nonsense.

I disagree on the conclusion. Intel is not dumb. As soon as the first Ryzen models came to market, and caught everyone (including them) by surprise, they probably started development of a new chip architecture. We don't see anything because it takes years to come out with a complete redesign, but I'm sure they are hard at work to come back to the top. If they aren't doing this, the future battles are already lost, because Zen is a very modular, powerful and cool architecture. They need something completely new to stop AMD's growth.

Brian_R170

Intel website shows the TDP of the Core i9-9900 as 65W. Your table currently shows 95W.

Edit: I see the table is fixed now, but I wondering if the comment that it will still need "a beefy cooler and motherboard" is valid given that it's locked and limited to 65W.

middcore

Nothing to see here, folks.

ferncba

Quote:

Intel finally unveils its full series of Coffee Lake Refresh processors for the desktop.
Intel Unveils Full Desktop Coffee Lake Refresh Lineup : Read more

Core i5-9600K /KF have a TDP of 95W, not 65W.

Cheers!

mdd1963

A pretty boring release of several additional processors that should have launched last October...

alextheblue

i7 table is wrong (F model listed as having iGPU, and vice versa).

remixislandmusic

I would say I'm still holding out on AMD and Intel. AMD was well behind Intel, not releasing 14nm zen chips until 2017. The times have changed. AMD has already launched a couple of 7nm GPUs including the gaming-focused Radeon Vii and other data crunching Instinct GPUs. AMD's current gaming CPUs are based on 12nm and are soon getting an upgrade to 7nm. AMD has already announced 7nm EPYC ROME (what a stupid name) server CPUs.

Intel has been based on 14nm for ages and these new CPUs are rather uninteresting and quite similar to Skylake chips from 5 years ago. It has been 55 months since the 5th of September, 2014 when Intel first announced 14nm CPUs. That is nearly 5 years! Intel has been delaying 10nm ( roughly = to AMD 7nm) for a while with no 10nm CPUs in sight for anytime soon. I really hope we have some friendly competition from both teams red and blue.http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2014/2014090701_Intel_launches_first_Broadwell_processors.html

PaulAlcorn

Quote:

i7 table is wrong (F model listed as having iGPU, and vice versa).

Thanks for the heads up! Nice to see your comments back on the articles! about time.

PaulAlcorn

Quote:

Core i5-9600K /KF have a TDP of 95W, not 65W.
Cheers!

Thanks for that. Intel's docs for this launch are a bit of a mess, I thought i had caught all of the errors when i made the tables. missed this one, though. [ATTACH type="full" alt="32"]32[/ATTACH]

joeblowsmynose

Quote:

Intel website shows the TDP of the Core i9-9900 as 65W. Your table currently shows 95W.
Edit: I see the table is fixed now, but I wondering if the comment that it will still need "a beefy cooler and motherboard" is valid given that it's locked and limited to 65W.

Well, if it is a "65w" part like the 9900k is a "95w" part then the "beefy cooler and motherboard" comment is valid.

InvalidError

Quote:

I disagree on the conclusion. Intel is not dumb. As soon as the first Ryzen models came to market, and caught everyone (including them) by surprise, they probably started development of a new chip architecture.

There has been no fundamental breakthroughs in CPU architecture in over 25 years, just go look at a the Alpha 21264's block diagram and compare it to modern CPUs, all fundamentally the same apart from ISA-specific overhead and back-end organization.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with Intel's current architecture, Intel's main problem is simply hitting the limits of what is possible on 14nm and a new architecture won't change that. Going to 10nm on the other hand should afford Intel a little more timing margin to make the scheduler a little deeper and wider, which is why Intel can add extra execution ports to Icelake to nudge its IPC and SMT performance up. AMD is likely doing the same with Zen 2, keep fundamentally the same architecture apart from splitting it between chiplets and make the execution back-end slightly wider to accommodate whatever extra ILP the upgraded scheduler may be able to squeeze out of code.

Unless there is something fundamentally wrong with a given CPU design, such as stupid latency in the pipeline for the sake of higher clocks that end up causing more harm than good (Netburst, driver/dozer/etc.), it does not make sense to start from scratch when a scheduler and back-end upgrade (basically what Intel has been doing since Nehalem/Core iX-nnn) can already get you most of the IPC benefits a new process can provide. Unless AMD hits a brick wall with its Zen core design, it will likely end up reusing the same foundation for the next 10+ years too.

chickenballs

Can you actually buy these cpus at their msrps?also do we gamers actually need to upgrade from 7th or even 4th gen i7?Well I do understand if a professional CS player may want to push past 200fps with the newer higher clocked i7 and i9s but pretty sure the majority of us are not into competitive fps games. You know the millions of gamers who mainly play rpg and mmorpg which mostly are locked to 60fps anyway...So resolution and visuals may be more important than 200+ fpsSo why not keep our i7 4790K or 7700k and save the money on a better gpu instead??

also do we gamers actually need to upgrade from 7th or even 4th gen i7?

Depends on whether you play games that scale beyond 4C8T and care about whatever extra performance this yields. I'm still fine with my i5-3470 in the few games I play, not in any specific hurry to upgrade but I may still get tempted by a Ryzen 3600 if it turns out as good as the more optimistic alleged leaks and rumors suggest.

nobspls

What exactly is refreshed? There is no replacement for the 9900K or 9700K. And is the in-silicon fix finally all there for meltdown and spectre?

InvalidError

Quote:

What exactly is refreshed?

Nothing new got refreshed over already-released 9th-gen chips, this is merely an announcement of what should be the final listing of Intel's 9000-series.

remixislandmusic

Intel has so many security flaws at this point.

alextheblue

Quote:

Thanks for the heads up! Nice to see your comments back on the articles! about time.

I still read TH daily but a lot of news articles still don't appear to have a built-in comment section or link to comments (at least at the time I read them). :P

Keep up the good work.

rigg42

Is it safe to assume the 9600/9500 will be OEM only like their predecessors?

TJ Hooker

Quote:

Is it safe to assume the 9600/9500 will be OEM only like their predecessors?

By "predecessors" are you referring to the 8600/8500? Because both of those are available for retail purchase. Availability may be a bit spotty, but that could be due to the general Intel CPU shortage.

rigg42

Quote:

By "predecessors" are you referring to the 8600/8500? Because both of those are available for retail purchase. Availability may be a bit spotty, but that could be due to the general Intel CPU shortage.

Upon further inspection it looks like you're correct. I didn't remember seeing those available in anything but oem systems. Disregard my previous post. The 9600 could actually be interesting at that price.